Once in a Generation book. Review on White Tiger, The - Aravind Adiga

This weekend I happened to lay my hands on "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga.

Publisher: Harper Collins

Price: Rs 395/-(Hard Cover)

"The White Tiger", simply put, is a tale of two Indias. As the author himself says, there are only two sets of people in India - "The people with large bellies and the ones with no stomachs at all. Either you eat or get eaten up"

The book shows us the India we always knew, the India that exists around us. The India which is outside our air conditioned cars, the India which works on tea stalls, the India which we deny the existence of when we talk about it to our friends abroad. It is a story of a child born in "Darkness"(an obvious reference to Bihar) who is "the one who comes only once in generation - like the white tiger". The book can be split in two parts - the child's life in darkness and his life in the light - which again is another manifestation of darkness, if you think that was too complex a thought, read on.

The parents and the family of this child never even named him - he was called "Munna", which means a baby boy. It is in the village school that he gets a name, so that the teacher's life is a little easy - "Balram". But soon he is taken out of the school and starts leading the life of a "servant". And there starts the first phase of the book - the life in Darkness. Balram works at a tea stall in his village, then at a tea stall in the town, and then as a driver at the landlord's place. The picture of the feudal structure has been captured in a photo prefect manner. The description of his life would take any North Indian to his ancestral home, and remind him/her of all the "chhotoos" and "ramus" who worked at his/her house, shop, street, market and of course tea stalls. Aravinda Adiga has been immensely successful in this representation and has not gone overboard with it(unlike Upamanyu Chatterjee in "mammeries ." and others)

Balram's character is also the narrator of the story and proclaims himself to be a good listener. The description of Balram's father dying at the hospital in the nearby town(inspite of three foundation stones of hospitals in his own village) is moving, but you simply do not find it melodramatic or pityful. The description has been made in a very dark manner, from psychopath's point of view. Similar descriptions of his life as a driver(and thus, also a cook, a masseur, a cleaner, a sweeper and entertainment for his masters) brings a hatred for your own country in the forefront. You bring to loathe the way men and women are treated, without actually hating the book itself - which was something novel in this book. I never got that thought reading an Upmanyu Chatterjee or Naipaul. And the credit goes to Aravind.

The second part of the book is set in Delhi, when Balram comes to Delhi with his masters as their driver(and cook, cleaner, .). Balram learns about malls, traffic jams and the so called social equality of the metropolitan cities. The incidents at the Mall, the late nights waiting for drunk masters to arrive in the Delhi winters have been again described well by Aravind.

Then he loses track - after bursting out with all his anger in a very talented manner, Aravind starts closing up the middle and starts building an end to his story. At this point of time, he looks like an author, desperate to finish the book(probably because the publisher is running out of patience). The anger is lost, and the story takes over - diluting the flavor of the book. The story ends in Bangalore, with Balram building a business with the money he took from his master after murdering him( I am not revealing anything that you would not know after reading the first 40 pages of the book)

The book is still a collector's item - for the its description of India, and Aravind's one liners. I have taken a couple of them from the book and put them here -

My country is the kind where it pays to play it both ways: the Indian entrepreneur has to be straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, at the same time.

. India is two countries in one: an India of Light, and an India of Darkness. The ocean brings light to my country. Every place on the map of India near the ocean is well off. But the river brings darkness to India - the black river.

The book has everything, the social disparity, the corrupt politicians, the money swindling industrialists, the golden hair prostitutes, rich drunk wives, speeding cars and hit and run cases. It will tell you everything you know about India, everything you have always ignored, everything you have always assumed that "it will never change" - everything you have not done anything about.